Incendiary Image of the Day: The Police Are There to Protect You! Edition

Instapundit reckons “THIS CARTOON GETS IT EXACTLY BACKWARD. Police don’t actually protect law-abiding citizens from criminals so much as they protect criminals from the much-rougher justice they’d get in the absence of a legal system.” Oh I don’t know about that. While citizen-delivered “rough justice” is a thing – a concept that certainly appeals to the popular imagination – I hardly consider the police the bad guys’ champion (however inadvertently). Glenn’s analysis fails to take account of the police’s deterrent effect. Or, more importantly . . .

the fact that legally armed Americans take out more bad guys than police. With less collateral damage. I guess you could say that’s the kind of rough justice of which Mr. Reynolds speaks, which, according to his theory, would increase dramatically in the absence of duly authorized law enforcement. As might out-of-control vigilantism, it should be said. Anyway, the cartoon rankles because it shows helpless Americans cowering behind the cop’s badge. The “thin blue line.” I say screw that. Man-up and defend yourself and your family. With the help of a fully accountable, completely transparent police force, of course. [h/t James]

comments

This is one of the most misinterpreted and misrepresented cases in the Second Amendment community. The reason the Courts have found that the police are not obligated to help specific individuals is bacase it is mission impossible. To rule otherwise would be to make policing unaffordable. All the police can do is to keep the peace in general but they cannot prevent every breach.

There are at least three reasons for the Second Amendment. One of them is to allow the citizen to protect himself against specific breaches of the peace.

Wrong. In that case, the judges decided that police are not legally obligated to help anyone at all. But naturally the pigsters want to have and eat the cake, so they’ll keep saying they are the guardians of civilization when in fact they are the destroyers of peace.

@tdiinva — Not only did the Supreme Court rule, in that very case, that the police have no legal obligation whatsoever to help anyone at all, in other cases as well the SCOTUS and various state supreme courts have also found that, among other things, police:

– Have no obligation to enforce court orders of protection.
– Have no obligation to arrest anyone for any crime they did not directly, physically witness.
– Have no obligation to retain an arrested person in custody.

Courts rule kinda however the f$&@ they want. Our department has been sued for “special relationships” and failure to provide service. While SCOTUS and the lower courts are supposed to be consistent, and consistent with the Constitution, that doesn’t mesh very well with reality.

So I’m inclined to do the right thing as a police officer. Perhaps lawyers will protect me if I leave someone to their death, but I’d rather not have that on my conscience.

Regardless, I’ll support citizens being armed. It’s the right thing to do, meshes with the Constitution, and helps out a whole lot in the event of a typical 5-15 minute police response time.

@Accur81
“So I’m inclined to do the right thing as a police officer. Perhaps lawyers will protect me if I leave someone to their death, but I’d rather not have that on my conscience.”
-Shows there is some hope for you to be a good man, and then you lie immediately, like a typical cop.

“Regardless, I’ll support citizens being armed. It’s the right thing to do, meshes with the Constitution,”
-Your job description as a state sanctioned agent of California means you have chosen money over protecting American citizens rights, which doesn’t mesh to well with the Constitution.

@Accur81
“So I’m inclined to do the right thing as a police officer. Perhaps lawyers will protect me if I leave someone to their death, but I’d rather not have that on my conscience.”
-Shows there is some hope for you to be a good man, and you immediately cast that hope away with a lie, like a typical cop by saying the following:

“Regardless, I’ll support citizens being armed. It’s the right thing to do, meshes with the Constitution,”
-Your job description as a state sanctioned agent of California means you have chosen money over protecting American citizens rights, which doesn’t mesh to well with the Constitution.

Just because there’s an anti-gun police chief out there doesn’t mean I’m anti-gun. I was anti-“Gun Free Zones” as a Marine 0311. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t re-enlist, but didn’t prevent me from enlisting in ’94. While in CA, I’ve done quite a bit to get cops and non-LEO buddies into new guns, semi-auto shotguns, CCW permits, and AR-15s.

Unless your one of the types who think tickets for red lights and jail time for DUIs are unconstitutional. I can’t help with that. I have this philosophy that folks should use vehicles and firearms in a responsible manner.

@Accur81
Are you that obtuse, to not realize that you have no purpose being on a website that is about the tools of freedom, which are meant as protection from statist bootlickers like yourself. It must be embarrassing for you to realize that you have sold out your OATH, for money, and all your life would amount to in the eye of an American Patriot, is that you are just something sticky that may need wiped off their boots, when you try to enforce unconstitutional laws.

” I was anti-“Gun Free Zones” as a Marine 0311.”
The Marines I know are all different shades of green, but your character is Yellow.
I would say to you thanks for serving and having honor at one point in your life, and then I would ask how it was so easy for you to piss on that Oath, by dishonoring that very Oath to the Constitution, not the state. You are the definition of a comfortable coward. You are the domestic enemy that the Oath was talking about.

HotandEmpty – What are you railing about vs. Accur81? I didn’t read anything in Accur81’s couple of posts above that led me to imagine he was in any way disreputable. There is nothing whatsoever in your post that points to either Accur81’s mis-conduct or bad attitude.

You seem to be railing against all cops simply for their choice of profession. Is that the case? If so, your attitude is despicable.

I would be the last to suggest that there aren’t a few bad cops nor that there aren’t a few more cops with a bad attitude. This is not to say that the majority or all cops deserve to be tarred with the same broad brush. That’s nonsense. Most cops seem to be doing the best they can within the framework of their respective agency policies. If-and-to-the-extent that we have a beef with cops it’s our duty as citizens to exercise control over our government agencies through the political process. We aren’t doing that effectively.

Nor, for that matter, are we effectively controlling our politicians in any other matter. If there is widespread failure in our governments (a proposition of which I’m firmly convinced) culpability falls on our shoulders, the citizens.

So you cast blame for the malfaisant politicians onto the collective citizenry, even though elections are little more than a charade to choose between identical scumbags, in order to manufacture the supposed legitimacy of the state.

Meanwhile the individual police, who willingly and consciously enforce the diktats of those politicians at gunpoint in return for a taxpayer funded paycheck, get a moral pass.

Bad guys know the cops arent a threat; the thugs are back on the street on a plea before the arresting officers even end their shift. Some places you can shoot at a cop and get out of jail in under five years.

Worse, the police answer to politicians. Those bunch could care less if half the city has their homes invaded. Of course, looking impotent in the face of a crime wave looks bad on TV, but so does video footage of brown skinned offenders being locked up. So the politicians goal isn’t to secure the city, and in fact some collude with the criminals to get more money under the table.Their goal is to reduce crime enough to look good for next election, without being hit with “RACISM ” accusations for daring to keep dark skinned offenders behind bars.

Do too good a job as an officer fighting crime, and youll become a bigger threat to your bosses then the thugs on the street . So as a citizen, the only agency capable of defending your home…is you.

This isn’t too surprising. There have always been tacit understandings between cops and people who break laws. Some of these are pretty benign—not giving speeding tickets for 5mph over the limit for instance—while others are practical limitations that recognize limited resources (or threats). If you go to any fishing village, it’s not hard to find that the coast guard knows perfectly well who the smugglers are. Same thing happens with game wardens and poachers.

“So as a citizen, the only agency capable of defending your home…is you.”

The only problem with that personal responsibility, is the citizen has to be more concerned with being murdered legally by a cop than a criminal. Crackheads, and gangbangers are not a threat to me, because I don’t have to allow them with in breathing distance of me, as I have to do by gun point of an cowardly jack boot.

AS an open carrier the biggest threat to me is a police officer on a power trip. Which is the main reason for a BUG. Any man that wants to disarm a lawful carrier is a threat, because they are just trying to abuse their authority. I am not concerned talking to an armed cop(citizen) when his gun is holstered, and I expect the same from a fellow citizen being paid by my tax monies.

“Glenn’s analysis fails to take account of the police’s deterrent effect”

Obviously police have -some- effect, but there has not been a 50% explosion of ‘extra police’ on the streets to explain the absolute hemorrhaging/plummeting of the US’s violent crime rates. That corollary follows from adoption of Shall Issue permits for citizen concealed carry, state by state, as each state has adopted it. When a former cherry victim transmogrifies into a potential rolling executioner, being a criminal loses an enormous amount of its appeal.

Additionally to say, it’s almost a shame that the anti-gunners get to be free-riders in the improved and safer society which gun ownership brings. Anti-gunners should very much get to exist in the world their idiotic goals would cause. I guess what I’m saying is You’re Welcome, .. now turn again to rend us.

“legally armed Americans take out more bad guys than police. With less collateral damage. I guess you could say that’s the kind of rough justice of which Mr. Reynolds speaks, which, according to his theory, would increase dramatically in the absence of duly authorized law enforcement”

Perhaps, but only for a short while. Again, the same chilling effect of citizen carry upon crime would be in play. There would not be millions of suicidal new criminals jumping in front of bullets just so Reynolds’ theory could show an uptick. Criminals would think the same thing they presently do, just more of it, namely: “If every frail grandma and soccer mom out there is going to blow my effing head off, guess what, I’m not going Out There.”

They enforce the law, sometimes. Any saving or protecting that may occur in the process of enforcing the law, sometimes, is purely coincidental.

NPR did a story on Utah’s attempt to reign in tactical teams run amok and while interviewing a officer in charge of a particular team he went on an explicative laden tirade about the “law” and how he had to enforce it whether right or wrong.

Which would be fine except for police ignoring inconvenient laws is not only common but systemic, tolerated and often encouraged. See the epidemic of police steroid use for a well documented nation wide example that has been going on for half a century or more.

No, it’s not about enforcing the “law.” It’s about money and getting their rocks off stomping on throats.

The problem isn’t police or the criminials. The problem is when self-defense is de facto criminalized, such that taking action to defend one’s self, family, and property carries with it the attendant risk of losing it all anyway, due to bad government.

I see it as utterly evil how in too much of America, decent people are forced to consider that horrible calculus: obey the government’s diktat and risk being victimized by criminals, or be prepared against criminals and risk the government taking everything from you as a result.

Police deterrence only goes so far. The people who actually stop crime are armed citizens, and we can never have too many.

Agreed, police are symptomatic of bad government.
Read the comments under Instapundent; they are worthwhile.

The problem we are witnessing is self-promoting. Take this scenario: Kid has a joint in his pocket. Cop stops him; he runs. He is caught, arrested, jailed. His community sees nothing sufficiently egregious about the kid with a joint to justify his rough treatment by the cop or his being jailed. So, the community decides the best thing for its members to do in such a situation is to run and try to get-away. The government (municipal) regards running away as defiance of its authority and requires its cops to crack-down. Use as much force as they can get away with to impose the government’s sense of order. The voters re-elect these government officials for cracking-down. They want to rid their communities of drugs. Drugs are destroying their community.

Clearly, it’s not any individual voter’s own son (daughter) who occasionally smokes a joint. That behavior is objectionable, but not so severe that it justifies arrest, roughing-up, and jailing. No, instead, it’s the neighbor’s sone who is dealing in their neighborhood. So, the government must carry-on: law-and-order with respect to the neighbor’s son who is dealing; a proper respect for the voter’s own son’s dignity when he is simply in possession of a joint.

There is no way out of this dilemma. Freddie Grey is the epitome of the problem in our society and its relationship with law-and-order. Even if 99% of cops were scrupulous about their use-of-force, the remaining 1% excessive use-of-force would suffice to keep alive the resentment of police and government. Is the 99% figure accurate? Or, are only 90% of cops scrupulous? Doesn’t matter; the meme would be the same.

If 90% of homicide is intra-racial – and presumably intra-neighborhood – then there is NO POLITICAL solution. The culture in each such neighborhood must change for there to be any improvement in the crime rate.

Bear in mind that we, the voters, COULD prescribe a different solution. We WOULD NOT; the consequence would be unacceptable.

There is a “moral hazard” to socializing a risk via some “insurance” scheme. We recognize this when we say that the owner of a building suffered a total loss in a suspicious fire. We say “he sold it to the insurance company”.

Suppose we voters called for a victim compensation fund scheme. If any one of us citizens were raped or robbed we could lay a claim against the state for its failure to protect us. We recognize that such a scheme would never serve its intended purpose:
– some citizens would file false claims for losses;
– other citizens would let-down-their-guard and engage with stupid people playing stupid games at stupid times in stupid places.
Taxes to compensate “victims” would quickly bankrupt the compensation fund. And so, we voters make the wise choice: we immunize the state; and, behave prudently.

Where we are NOT wise is that we have neglected to behave as prudently as we should. By harboring the illusion that the police reduce our risk to a greater extent then they can, we neglect to armor-up. Burglarproof our homes and shops. Arm ourselves while in our homes, shops or on the street.

It would have been acceptable if ONLY a MINORITY of voters harbored this illusion. Alas, in at least 5 to 10 States, a MAJORITY of voters harbor this illusion. These have elected politicians who infringe on the RKBA of the minority. At the present juncture there remains a RK-A even in these 5 – 10 States; but the R-BA is curtailed almost completely.

Our task is to secure a solid super-majority of voters who recognize the illusion and respect the rights of their fellow citizens to protect themselves.

It seems to me that most police on the street on any given day are more involved with giving tickets to the average Joe and Jane just trying to get to work and back. As for the cartoon, I would associate cops with janitors. They have the thankless job to clean up shit and try to keep the place as clean as possible in the face of the masses who don’t really much care.

The only ones that should be looking to others for their self-defense are children.

If an adult expects others to provide for their safety and security, then by definition, they are acting as an overgrown child. Which explains alot about the wishful and magical thinking, as well as being in denial and the delusion of the anti-self defense crowd.

I taught my kid to look out for himself at a young age. Only the children of irresponsible, uncaring parents need fear “what might happen.” Yes, I’ll stand between him and a bullet. But, more importantly, I taught him to dispense his own.

I gave my son a Saiga .223 with a bump stock just a few days after Sandy Hook. The gift had been intended since months prior, but it ended up being so appropriate…

Children. Hmmmm. Yes, you have a point; albeit I respectfully offer that you have defined the protected class narrowly, and unnecessarily so.

What about the elderly? How about the physically impaired? How about those who are no longer children, not elderly or impaired, yet not fully capable of providing entirely for their own defense? Take, for example, an 17-year-old girl; not old enough to be allowed (by present law) to bare arms? Alternatively, a mother of young children who may be old enough to bare arms but not in the best position to engage in a gun-fight?

My objection to defining the protected class as [young] children, we unnecessarily skew the view of the problem. Were this the exclusive view then the solution would be to confine [young] children to venues (homes, schools) where their custodians could keep them safe. Mommy bar the door! (To the home, the school).

To pick just one of my additional examples – the 17-year-old-girl – What does our society say to her? “Honey, you’re on-your-own!” You are old enough to be out-and-about alone; but not old enough to to defend yourself. Nor are you mature enough to take complete responsibility for staying out of dangerous places. This 17-year old’s neighborhood might well be an inner-city ghetto.

Does “Honey, you’re on-your-own!” suffice to satisfy society’s responsibility to care for its vulnerable members? How about: “Don’t worry, the police will protect you!”?

Did civilizations – prior to the advent of municipal police forces – give these answers to its vulnerable members? Or, did individual members of society undertake to protect fellow-members of their society? Particularly, those more vulnerable than themselves.

However imperfect, ordinary citizens/subjects in prior civilizations armed themselves to go about in their dangerous environments for their personal protection. In so doing, they also imposed an implied risk to miscreants who might threaten vulnerable individuals.

By disarming citizens, too many of our modern societies have jeopardized individual security. Fit adults can choose which risks to take and which to avoid. Minors, the elderly, the physically disabled are in far greater jeopardy. These latter can’t run fast enough; perhaps they can’t make good-enough judgements as to where to live or when and where to be out-and-about.

Those of us who WOULD arm ourselves ought to argue on behalf of those less capable of being armed. The 17-year-old is prohibited from bearing arms. The elderly, young mothers or the disabled may not feel up to bearing arms in their own defense. Some of us who WOULD arm ourselves benefit others more vulnerable members of society.

[Young] children don’t vote. We need the votes of vulnerable members of our society to support the R-BA so that those of us who WOULD bear arms can do so in their defense. Many such voters may continue to arm themselves; nevertheless, they should be willing to contribute by taking advantage of the “externality” of being “free-riders” on the R-BA.

At eleven years old, I had a .22lr Winchester rifle in my closet that I could take out anytime I wanted without my parents permission. At eleven, I was driving a tractor hauling bins of apples five miles down the road to a cider factory. I was big enough at eleven I was driving our cars and trucks on our private property.

At eleven, I could have very easily used that rifle to defend myself or my family from a predator, human or animal. If my parents had gotten sick, I was big enough to drive our car to the nearest hospital.

Being a “child” now a days, with the availability of the power of a gun, and the power of technology, is more about those that have been taught responsibility, rather than a specific age range.

I’m not interested in any sort of vengeful justice, but what will happen to a criminal if they attack me is much worse than if the police get them… I’m not a cowering sissy like this picture depicts… Wow… Is this really the prevailing attitude? Among cartoonists? The Public at large? Cops? They think I’m some trembling simpleton? Is that how some people see themselves? How seriously screwed up…

The entire premise of the cartoon is just not factually correct – it’s delusional from a statistical perspective.

The police almost *never* stop crime as it happens. Unless you’re in a rough urban ‘hood, most cops stop one or two crimes in their entire 20. The job is report, investigate, attempt to solve, arrest.

Crime is incredibly low. This press-driven mythos that the US is scary dangerous is just statistically not true. Yes, bad things can happen. Yes, fortune favors the prepared. But unless you are black and urban, your chances of getting killed by anyone other than a friend or relative are really low. Even if you are black and urban, if you don’t and aren’t in a gang, you’re still pretty safe. If you are white and aren’t involved in gangs or the drug trade, you have (statistically) just about nothing to worry about in reality. Again, things can (and do) happen, be prepared. But like my bugout bag, other than an earthquake or a fire, I can safely bet it’ll never be used.

Regardless, as I hope everyone here knows by now, The Supremes have ruled many times that the police are under absolutely no duty or obligation to help you. At all. There are good coppers who will do it all out of a sense of pride and service – but they don’t have to.

Be careful with your low crime rate assertion. Individual situations can vary wildly. Do you live in a rough urban neighborhood? Your odds of being the victim of a violent crime are much, MUCH higher than someone living in a nice suburban location. Does your work often take you into rough neighborhoods? Do you work at a gas station, convenience store, or liquor store? Answer “yes” to either of the two previous questions and your odds of being a victim of a violent crime are, again, MUCH higher than someone who works in a “safe” venue.

More importantly, look at the odds over a significant portion of the average lifetime. What are your odds of being the victim of a violent crime over the course of 40 years (between the ages of 20 and 60)? People reported more than 1 million violent crimes in the United States to law enforcement agencies in 2013. Many more people were victims of violent crime and never reported it for various reasons. I have talked to police officers who are confident that twice as many violent crimes occurred. But let’s stick with the 1 million number. There are about 320 million people in the U.S. So your odds of being the victim of a violent crime are about 1 in 320. Sounds low. But that was for a single year. Your odds of being the victim of a violent crime over a 40 year period are 40 times higher — 40 out of 320 = 1 out of 8. That’s right. Your odds of being the victim of a violent crime over a 40 year span of your life are 1 out of 8. In my world, that is not a “low probability”.

Of course that analysis is oversimplified. Depending on your lifestyle choices (including where you live and work and what type of work you do), your odds will be better in some cases and even worse in other cases. And our nation’s violent crime rate has never been constant over a 40 year period. Nevertheless, this gets us in the ballpark. With a “1 out of 8 people” generalized odds of being the victim of a violent crime over my adult lifespan, I want to be armed.

Police cannot, nor were they ever intended to replace the public’s responsibility for their own security.

To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
7th of the 9 Principles of Policing. From the ‘General Instructions’ issued to every new police officer in the Metropolitan Police from 1829. Also known as the Peelian Principles.

A person may not consent to being policed but people, or a society, will always demand it. If they don’t get it from public servants working in cooperation with the public then they’ll get it from a military force “acting in their best interest”.

The police have a very distinct role in society that I don’t think most of them realize, hence some of the problems. There is a set of things that must be present in any non-dictatorial society for it to be prosperous and healthy. Things like education, property ownership, a reasonably free market and a perception of a reasonably fair set of laws that can be uniformly enforced. All of that doesn’t have to be perfect and it never is. In this couuntry a lot of that is broken. But it at least has to be close enough that people are not revolting over it or, even worse, not producing a decent Gross National Product over it.

The police’s role is the uniform enforcement of the laws, supporting publlic confidence in the government and the society. The more the laws are unfair and unenforceable, the tougher their job is. The more the cops don’t realize that is their role, the worse they do their jobs. Thinking the job is “cops and robbers” doesn’t help. Protecting people against crime, on the spot, is not a reasonable, or achieveable expectation. What is reasonable is that they do a professional job of enforcing the laws after the fact of crimes and there is a value to that.

But the cops, and the lawmakers, need to realize they should be supporting the idea of people protecting themselves instead of getting in the way of it.

You make a strong argument. The cop-in-the-street should be a strong proponent of this perspective; and, I hasten to add, they are proponents. (See, e.g., the PoliceOne.com surveys).

While a super-majority of street cops do support RKBA and see the logic, a significant minority do NOT support these rights. More importantly, street cops are NOT vociferous in their support; not, at least, at the national level. (If every street cop in AZ were 100% behind the 2A and put a bumpersticker on his car to that effect it wouldn’t change public opinion on the East coast.)

We need street-cops throughout the country to come-out in full-throated support of the RKBA; at least sufficient to shout-down their politically-appointed chiefs. When will this happen?

More importantly, what can we PotG do to promote street-cop support of the RKBA? Blanket condemnation of ALL cops – NO EXCEPTIONS IMAGINABLE – does us NO GOOD. If 1% or 10% of cops are “bad” in one-way-or-another that’s fully 1% or 10% too many. It still leaves a great majority of cops who are on our side as citizens and gun keepers-and-bearers. It would help our cause if we confine our criticism of cops to the specific bad behaviors of individuals ad refrain from tarring with a broad brush.

@Joe R–I figured you would appreciate this with your disdain for the blue states.

” a2plusb2 • 18 hours ago

God save us from any situation that = the depiction in this cartoon.
.
(To clarify a bit, in red-state America the gun on the left is smaller, and the father and mother on the right have their own guns and are shooting back.)

Most cops can and will put themselves between civilized folks and the savages on the streets nowadays. Of course you have to defend yourself, but there are LEOs dying out there for our sake. Reading some of these anti-police comments makes me wonder if HuffPost and the ThinkProgress America-haters have infiltrated TTAG. #BlueLivesMatter

Yeah they’d kill you if you were doing something wrong. Like rushing them or pointing a gun at them. Please heed the advice of convict Amiri King on interacting with the police https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFJvZtgyXRE

We live in a 1st world nation in the 21st century. Yes we need police and other .gov. Are they being properly used and is the .gov properly responsive to the needs of the citizen? There’s 300+ million of us with that many different opinions.

And rough justice…..Is it justice or a man getting lynched cause a women cried rape? Or a man getting murdered by a mob cause the mob made a mistake?

Mistakes happen in our current system with all the scientific techniques involved. Do you want the excited mob making instant decisions on you or your son or daughter?

Rough justice is not a person repelling a home invasion. That’s simple self defense.

A good cop WANTS to protect, in reality they often can’t. They RESPOND to incidents in hope they can get there in time no matter the issue. As for the criminal, cops are supposed to protect all. Innocent until guilty? The facts are not immediately available at an incident. The picture must be assembled. Doesn’t always happen so clean and way it is supposed too. It is not an easy job.

Just my 2 cent opinion, but I think prisons have done as much to reduce crime as the citizens of this country embracing their 2nd Amendment rights. European countries are always bitching that we have such a high number of people locked up. I say that is one of several factors in our reducing crime rates. The progressives want to empty our prisons and put the “non-violent” criminals back out on the street to save tax dollars. I say many of these “non-violent” criminals are actually VIOLENT felons that plea bargained their charges down to a lower level. And when these turds hit the street and mayhem breaks out all over the country, then the progressives will have their reason to increase the gubmint’s power and authority over us. Because it is all about power, and nothing to do with freedom.

Too bad Europe in general has lower crime rates even though they don’t have the same prison-industrial complex the US built to enrich police/prison guard unions and satiate the fascist tendencies in government.

I love Big Brother because I know the Ministry Of Love will always protect me at all times. I feel safer with total gun control and knowing that violent gun crime will be impossible to initiate because all of society will thus be disarmed ( except for the appointed guardians of Oceania).